Posted
by
samzenpus
on Thursday June 05, 2014 @09:05PM
from the time-to-fly dept.

Freshly Exhumed (105597) writes 'Canada is poised to buy 65 Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets, sources familiar with the process told Reuters. A detailed, 18-month review of Canada's fighter jet needs has concluded that the government should skip a new competition and proceed with the C$9 billion ($8.22 billion) purchase, three sources said. When the F-35 purchase was first proposed, Canadians were alarmed by the colossal price tag, and also that no fly-off competition had been conducted or was planned. This latest news is sure to rekindle criticism that the RCAF's requirements seem to have been written after the fact to match the F-35's capabilities (or lack thereof)."

What's wrong with a few SuperHornets? Extra survivability in case of an engine failure; both interception and ground attack (unlike the attack-only F35); easier to maintain; larger fuel capacity than the original Hornet; they actually FLY.

Umm, are you trolling or completely naive about geopolitics? Canada is a NATO member. An attack against one is an attack against all. There are three nuclear armed NATO states, and all three of them share common languages and cultural heritages with Canada. They aren't likely to look kindly upon any attempt to violate her sovereignty.

More to the point, Russia's MO isn't to invade her neighbors. It's to destabilize them, using restless minorities. That strategy works in poor countries with disparate ethic groups that share no common history. It isn't likely to bear fruit if applied to a rich developed country and I doubt that Moscow would try.

I think a lot of people here are misunderstanding what the F-35 is doing and where the 'can't fly' comments are coming from. Basically, your average current F-16 and F/A-18 are still very maneuverable jets. They're relatively light when flown clean and so they are still competitive in this configuration. In order for these planes to go to war effectively, you need to hang a whole pile of mission equipment off of them. IR and laser designator pods, weapons, extra fuel. This makes them heavy, draggy, and slow.

F-35s carry a lot of fuel and all of their mission equipment internally to preserve stealth. It also means it is less heavy, draggy and slow because the jet is aerodynamically clean when it is flown operationally.

For a very narrow suite of missions, this means you are carrying some stuff you don't need. For America, these missions will typically be F-15/F-22 territory. For every other set of missions it is much more efficient than any other strike fighter out there because it won't have as much reliance on external tanks or airborne tankers.

I'm not saying it doesn't have it's problems. It's stealth is only refined in the forward hemisphere. It is expensive and I feel it is forcing countries to adopt smaller fleet sizes to buy it. It does IMO feature design compromises that are forced upon it from being a close to common a tri-service, VTOL capable jet. But, the politicians did that, not the designers.

But Canada hos no problem with US nuclear armed ships and aircraft being in Canada [wikipedia.org].

While it has no more permanently stationed nuclear weapons as of 1984, Canada continues to cooperate with the United States and its nuclear weapons program. Canada allows testing of nuclear weapon delivery systems; nuclear weapon carrying vessels are permitted to visit Canadian ports; and aircraft carrying nuclear warheads are permitted to fly in Canadian airspace with the permission of the Canadian government. There is, however, popular objection to this federal policy. Over 60% of Canadians live in cities or areas designated “Nuclear Weapons Free”, reflecting a contemporary disinclination towards nuclear weapons in Canada. Canada also continues to remain under the NATO 'nuclear umbrella'; even after disarming itself in 1984, Canada has maintained support for nuclear armed nations as doing otherwise would be counter to Canadian NATO commitments.

Canada's number one rival in the North isn't Russia. It's another country called the USA. There is a conflict over a part of the sea near the boundary between Alaska and Yukon.
Canada's number two rival isn't Russia either. It's Denmark. Canada and Denmark both claim a tiny island which is on the border between the two countries.
Russia does not claim any territory claimed by Canada.